You’ve saved umpteen thousand dollars, have no debt, and the contract with your current employer ends in July. From here, you can either A) accept a position in a new job and continue saving money or B) use that money to travel the world indefinitely. Well folks, if I were you, I’d choose option B. And by “if I were you,” I mean I am you.
monkeyabroad.com was started in 2013. After a couple months of publishing blog posts, I started filming videos and uploading them to my YouTube channel. Most videos were about street food, a few videos were about travel.
Anyway, I’ve been working in Asia for the last three years in various teaching jobs and I’ve almost saved enough money to go full-time doing video production, at least for a few months. Actually, my friend and teammate on the Shanghai Warriors football team offered me a sales job that would keep me in Shanghai for another year, but I decided that traveling and doing some creative work would probably be more rewarding, and thrilling.
During these extended travels, I want to stay involved with YouTube and bring value to people who enjoy watching my videos, but I wanna take a different approach than what I’ve done in the past. I’m thinking that the new YouTube videos and blog focus would have this premise:
Travel the world for 20 dollars a day
I know what you’re thinking: “How to travel for x dollars” is the same story you’ve seen a million times in every travel blog ever made. Frankly, I’ve read more “how-to-travel-for-x-dollars-in-x-place” articles than I’m willing to admit, and the advice is always the same: “Stay in cheap hostels, couch-surf, eat local food, find a travel buddy to split costs, etc.”
But I will be offering something different…
Rather than making how-to blog posts which tell you the money-saving travel secrets you’ve already read in other travel blogs, this blog will show you what you can realistically expect to buy in a single day with 20 dollars in places all over the world, and I will share the experience with you through video.
The videos could show you what a typical hostel looks like, plus breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any adventure in between. And it all must be under 20 dollars/day.
Each video would focus on a particular city or region. And if 20 dollars isn’t enough in some regions, I could easily use couchsurfing.com to stay at strangers’ houses for free. Plus, I could document that experience if the couchsurfing host is cool.
Some ideas for videos and blog posts of what you can expect in the future:
What 20 dollars can buy you in (insert city name here)
The real cost of living on the beach in (insert beach name here)
What a 5-dollar hostel looks like in (insert city name here)
What a 2-dollar meal looks like in (insert city name here)
So there’s a basic idea of the direction I want to head with the blog soon. Now my question for you is: Which cities and regions would you like to see? Any suggestions or critiques of this idea? All comments are welcome.
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